Love Under the Moon: The Perfect Storm

Here's the thing Hive. Life is not perfect. Weddings are not perfect. And no matter how much time, love, money and effort you invest in your wedding things can and do go wrong. Many times the things that go wrong are out of your control and the only thing you can control is your reaction to the situation.

Our wedding day was beautiful. It was filled with happiness, love and pure joy. But things did go wrong. And unfortunately I did not always react with grace and poise. I considered just glossing over this part of the day, but I think that wedding blogs already sugarcoat the difficult parts of wedding planning and I cannot truly express the feelings and emotions of the day without sharing the whole story with you. I am ashamed to admit that I let such a minor detail derail me so easily, but when you work so hard for things to turn out a certain way it's difficult to let go when they don't go as planned.

The storm started to brew as soon as the makeup artist and hair stylists arrived. I booked with a company that provided both services. I really, really, really wanted airbrushed makeup for the wedding day and specifically chose a place that was known for their airbrushing. So, of course, the makeup artist arrived without her airbrushing equipment. According to her, no one told her that I had requested airbrushed makeup. (I later went back to the owner who told me that she most definitely made my request known to the makeup artist. To date, this has not been resolved and to be honest, I don't think it will ever be resolved.)

Fine. She didn't have her equipment. There was nothing that could be done so I put on a happy face and rolled with it. After my makeup was finished we moved on to my hair. I explained that my hair holds a curl really well (it does!) and that I wanted very loose curls.

Like this:

Photo by: GPT Photography on Bridal Musings via Lover.ly

Or this:

Photo by: Fondly Forever Photography on Inspired By This via Lover.ly

What I ended up with was this:

(I'm smiling here because I had not seen myself yet and didn't realize that I looked like Shirley-Fucking-Temple.)

The stylist led me over to a mirror, very proud of her creation. I stared at myself and my eyes widened. No. No. No. This wasn't right. I took a deep breath and told her this wasn't quite what I had in mind. She did her best to pull the curls out a little, but (spoiler alert!) my hair really does hold a curl and the damn things wouldn't loosen up. She kept trying to reassure me that they would fall as the day went on, but I know my hair and I know my curls just don't fall out like that.

By this point I was incredibly frustrated with both my hair and my makeup and I wanted everyone out. As I sat down with them to work out payments they informed me that the cost was another $10 per service, per person above what I had been quoted. When I pulled out the contract to show them that they were wrong they pointed to the clause that read:

"Holiday weekends (New years, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving) add $10pp/per service."

I understand weekends like Memorial Day and Labor Day when the holiday always falls on a Monday. You know exactly which weekend is the holiday weekend. But when the Fourth of July falls on a Wednesday is a bride to assume that the Saturday before is a holiday weekend? If you're going to play that game, couldn't the weekend after also be a holiday weekend? When I booked months in advance and then called again the week before to confirm, the salon owner failed to mention that there would be holiday prices. I would also like to note that not one of our other many vendors charged us holiday prices. I felt duped and I felt manipulated. I argued my case and the kicker is, after the makeup artist not bringing the right equipment and after my hair turning out the way it did, one of the hair stylists had the gall to argue back with me. In front of my mother. In front of my soon-to-be mother-in-law. And in front of my bridesmaids.

I was mortified and sent them packing in the most polite way I could. The second the door closed behind them the tears began to flow. My mother embraced me tightly.

"Oh honey, don't cry. You look beautiful."

I nodded and tried to hold back my tears. But being beautiful wasn't the problem. Yes, I looked pretty, but it wasn't how I pictured myself looking on my wedding day. And I paid good money to look the way I wanted to look. Instead, the stylists didn't bring the right equipment, did something totally ridiculous with my hair and then argued with me over the cost!

The situation pushed me over the edge. All of the emotions I had been feeling all morning, all week, all month, all year, culminated into this one moment. The tears fell steadily and no matter what I did I just couldn't pull myself together. And so, I did what any fully grown, mature woman would do. I shut myself in the bathroom and had a sobfest. Fortunately or unfortunately (I'm still not quite sure) I had scheduled for the videographer and photographer to arrive as the stylists were leaving so there wasn't much time left to feel sorry for myself. I dried my tears as best I could, took a deep breath and opened the door. The show must go on!

Note: I have decided not to share the vendor's name here on Weddingbee. That said, if you are a bride in the Albany, NY region and would like to discuss this further with me privately, please send me a message and I'm happy to talk to you about it one-on-one.

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then head to our rehearsal dinner where I shed my first tears of the weekend. We later wind down with our families back at the hotel.
• My bridesmaids get pretty and I get a special message from Mr. Coyote.  

Love Under the Moon: Here Comes the Sun

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling well rested and ready to conquer the world. HAH! Just kidding. In reality I woke up around 5 AM after a solid four hours of sleep and was too anxious to lay in bed any longer. I crept into the living room to write my last post as a miss and went over some last minute deets. I could feel the adrenaline bubbling under my skin. The day held so much promise! The sun was shining and it already looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, but how would it all play out? Would I dance a lot? Would I eat enough? Would I trip over my dress? After pacing around the room for a while I decided to hop into the shower and clear my head. As soon as I walked out I was instantly pummeled by MOH D.

"You're getting married todaaaaaaay!"

I gulped. Was this really happening? I felt my heart pounding and decided I should try to keep myself busy for the next few hours. It was only 7 AM and the hair stylists, makeup artist and all of my bridesmaids were not due to arrive until 9. I grabbed MOH D and we headed out to Dunkin Donuts to pick up coffee and bagels for all the ladies. (Poor MOH A had worked a super long shift at the hospital the day before and then drove two hours to our venue so we let her sneak in as much sleep as she could.)

We poured ourselves some coffee, laid out everything out and before we knew it there was a knock at the door. The hair stylists and makeup artist had arrived! My bridesmaids, Momma Coyote and FMIL Coyote trickled in shortly after and it was time to get to work!

It wasn't quite my turn to get prettified yet so I wandered around chatting with everyone and sipping on mimosas. At one point my phone buzzed. It was Mr. Coyote! And he had sent me a... YouTube link?

Video via YouTube

I should explain here that Mr. Coyote is a die-hard Beetlejuice fan and practically begged me to let him dress up like Beetlejuice for the wedding. While I am all about having the groom involved in wedding planning this was a little too much for me. I quickly put the kibosh on that one and gently suggested that it might make a better Halloween costume instead. To this day I am not quite sure if this video was Mr. Coyote's last ditch, passive aggressive attempt to change my mind or if he was just trying to be cute and was excited about the fact that it was our wedding day. I'm going to go with the latter. ;)

Other than a few random text messages I did not see or talk to Mr. Coyote until our first look. Did you talk to your groom before your first look or ceremony?

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then head to our rehearsal dinner where I shed my first tears of the weekend. 
• We wind down with our families back at the hotel.

Love Under the Moon: Winding Down

Our rehearsal dinner ended way too quickly and soon it was time to return to our hotel. My two maids of honor were spending the night in the hotel suite with me, but I wasn't quite ready for the evening to end so I invited my immediate family and Mr. Coyote and his immediate family back to the room for a bit.

Poppa Coyote quickly whipped out his new gift and happily played bartender for us.

He then rounded us all up and made a short, but sweet toast:

"To tomorrow, when two families become one."

Now, I am not typically a fan of scotch whisky, but you guys... This shit is GROOD. I mean good... And great. Great and good. It goes down so smooth and then makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Mmmmm. I initially cringed at the price tag of this baby, but after a glass of it, well, I'm a believer. That is some high quality booze, my friends.

Eventually everyone trickled out and headed home or back to their hotel room. Mr. Coyote was staying at my parents' house for the night and soon headed out as well. It was so strange saying goodbye to him and knowing that the next time I saw him it would be our wedding day! And he would be in a tux! And I would be in my wedding dress! There were too many emotions flying through my head and suddenly, as I hugged him goodnight, I felt my eyes brimming with tears for the second time that night.

I am so, so grateful that my besties spent the night with me because they instantly knew how to keep my nerves (and my tears!) at bay. We cuddled together on the couch, watched bad TV and took turns making Peppermint Patties. (<-- Try this you guys. It's seriously the world's best shot. You will not be disappointed.) Finally, somewhere around midnight, we wandered into the bedroom where we giggled and whispered under the covers as if we were teenagers again, until I quietly drifted off to sleep.

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then chow down at our rehearsal dinner. 
• I give my father his gift and shed my first tears of the weekend.

Love Under the Moon: First Tears

I'm sorry if it seems like I am dragging this out a bit. I know you guys probably want me to get to the good stuff (and I promise, we will get there soon!), but I really feel that this particular part of the night deserves its own post. It was an incredibly emotional moment for many of us and it really changed the course of the weekend.

After we handed out most of the gifts I turned to give my father his gift. As soon as he slid the box out of the bag he was overwhelmed. He started laughing and yelling, "No. No way!" I started giggling and grinning like a fool, insisting that he open the box. There was silence in the room as his eyes perused the bottle and finally landed on the engraving.

Now, my father is an incredibly strong man. He is smart, he is funny and he is kind. He is many, many things, but overly emotional is not one of them. So even though I had given him an emotionally-charged gift I was completely floored when tears began pooling in his eyes. I could not believe that my gift (or more likely my impending marriage) had affected him so.

His reaction sent me over the edge and soon we were two pathetic, blubbering fools bawling and hugging and bawling and hugging while everyone else looked on in shock -- those who know my father know he is not one for such displays. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I don't have any photos of this exchange, but we did manage to snap a few photos post-tears.

We hadn't told anyone except my mother about the very special gift I had picked out for my father so anyone not close enough to see the writing on the bottle did not quite understand what was going on. In fact, our friends later joked that they appreciated the fact that my gift was a very nice bottle of booze, but was it really worth crying over?! Of course, once I showed off the engraving they teared up a bit too.

These were the first of many tears that weekend. Some were happy tears, some were not-so-happy tears, but it seemed very fitting that the first ones were shared with the first man I loved.

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then chow down at our rehearsal dinner.

Love Under the Moon: We Practice

Well hello there Hive! Sorry for the brief respite -- apparently married life isn't any less chaotic than engaged life. I could give you a long list of excuses, but I know you don't want to hear about any of that. You just want to hear about our rehearsal. Right?! Right!

When I arrived at Franklin Plaza for our rehearsal a few members of our wedding party were already milling about, looking clueless.

I knew in advance that our officiant would not be able to attend our rehearsal, so I was a bit nervous about how everything was going to play out. Honestly, my worries were for naught; Joe, our venue coordinator, has been in the wedding biz for a long time and was fantastic at corralling everyone into the right place. We only did the run-through once so the actual rehearsal portion was probably about 10 minutes tops.

 Oh, what a motley crew we were!

Joe did a great job of being our fake officiant.

And now we're fake married! Woo hoo!

We spent the next twenty odd minutes tying up loose ends and answering some last minute logistical questions. What reserved seats did we need? What time were we coming over for family portraits before the ceremony? Where did we want the programs to be? There were so many tiny little details to go over that I hadn't even thought about!

We finished up around 4:30 (way earlier than I thought) and decided to just crash our rehearsal dinner a little early. Remember that time I told you guys about the shady looking restaurant near our venue? Yea, about that. A few weeks after I wrote that post my family and I decided to grab dinner there to see what this place was all about. And I'm here to tell you not to judge a book by its cover! Our dinner that night was hands down one of the best meals I've had in a loooong time and the service was wonderful. Needless to say, we booked right away (although I still think they should really consider cleaning up their storefront!).

Anywho, while our friends and family headed to Lo Porto's, Mr. Coyote and I bopped over to the hotel to pick up all the wedding party gifts. It took us a bit longer than I thought to pack up the car and unload everything, but it filled my heart with joy to walk into the room to see my closest friends and family gathered together to celebrate us.

I didn't have much time to dwell on this (which is probably a good thing!) as Mr. Coyote and I were quickly ushered into the room. We dug into dinner (which was FANtastic) and once everyone had seconds (and thirds!) Mr. Coyote and I stood up to address the room. We thanked everyone near and far for their support not only during our engagement, but throughout our seven years together. Then we asked them to give us a few moments of their time before digging into dessert so we could share our gifts with them.

Married bees, where you surprised by how quickly you ran through your rehearsal?

 Miss a recap?

•  I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.